Embrace the Northern Powerhouse, say business leaders

Ben O’Connell

More than 60 business leaders from across Northumberland and the North East have called on the region’s representatives to get behind the Northern Powerhouse initiative and ‘put a bold offer to the Government that will bring power and resources’.

One of the key tenets of this is devolution of powers to the regions, however, this is contingent on the introduction of elected mayors.

Yesterday, a group of business leaders, whose combined enterprises have a turnover in excess of £2.5billion and employ more than 5,000 people, wrote a letter calling on politicians to avoid trying to negotiate the mayoral issue, which has raised concerns in some quarters.

‘We believe the correct approach is for our local representatives to accept that the election decided the issue of elected Mayors and move on quickly to formulate a bid to Government for the powers we want to be devolved,’ it says, also warning that ‘brinkmanship over manifesto commitments is a dangerous game’.

The letter in full

Writing in a personal capacity, we want to raise public attention to the unique opportunities presented to the North East in connection with the Northern Powerhouse initiative.

The Government was re-elected with an outright majority and wants to hear from North East representatives about the powers and resources they want to see devolved to this region. However, it made a manifesto pledge that any transfer of powers would only be to areas that take the opportunity to introduce elected mayors.

Surprisingly, the media has been full of comment on this point from our local representatives, who seem to be reluctant to embrace this opportunity and are talking about ‘negotiation’ on mayors, rather than setting out the powers and resources we need in the North East. Some representatives have even claimed the Government does not have a mandate for its policy because most people in the North East voted Labour. Of course, if Labour had been elected, it would have been expected to implement policies, such as the mansion tax, that might not have been supported in the areas that it affected most, such as the Conservative-voting South East.

We believe the correct approach is for our local representatives to accept that the election decided the issue of elected mayors and move on quickly to formulate a bid to Government for the powers we want to be devolved.

We are at risk of being left behind by procrastination over the elected mayors issue. Manchester will have its new deal in full operation by May 2017. It would be all but impossible for us to achieve a deal by May 2018 unless our representatives ‘step on the gas’ and speed up their deliberations pulling together the type of bid that Ministers will find acceptable.

This is not a time for brinkmanship over manifesto commitments; it is a dangerous game that could result in the North East losing out. The time is right to put a bold offer to the Government that will bring power and resources to this region.

Full list of signatories

Adam Serfontein, Managing Director, The Hanro Group

Ajay Jagota, CEO, KIS Group

Alan Holmes, Non-executive Chairman of three private North East companies and Vice-Chair of an